Not your typical fusion machine
The goal is to have a plasma which is levitating so that it doesn’t interfere with and damage the fusion device. But this first plasma at OpenStar is supported by a cradle, Mataira says.

“When you try to confine plasma, you’re trying to take something that has a lot of energy and wants to go off in a direction – like toward the wall of your device – and you provide a magnetic field that takes some of that energy and redirects it into a curved path,” Mataira explains. “That takes care of a lot of the problem. But what that particle can still do is spiral along the field lines of your magnetic arrangement.”